This invention relates generally to equipment for the cooling and heating of homes and is especially well adapted to solar heat sources and more particularly relates to a heat distribution system which provides both storage and improved heat transfer with the ambient air within the building structure.
Solar energy has recently been emerging as an important part of the solution to both energy shortage and pollution problems. Equipment for harnessing the sun's radiated energy promises to provide an inexpensive, clean and efficient means for meeting energy needs. This is particularly true with respect to systems for heating or cooling inhabited building structures.
A typical solar heating system includes a collector for capturing the radiant energy from the sun, a storage device, commonly a large insulated tank of water and a system for distributing the heat from the storage tank to the building structure. Equipment for performing each of these three functions is currently available but, unfortunately, is not competitive in cost with conventional heating systems. Consequently, a substantial developmental effort is currently under way to design less costly equipment in order to make solar heating cost competitive.
While most technical efforts are being directed toward improving the solar collectors and heat storage systems, there is also a need for an improved heat distribution system tailored to the needs of a solar heating system.
The trend has been to use conventional heat exchange systems for heating building structures with solar energy collectors and storage systems. For example, some systems utilize hot water radiators of the type that have been conventionally used for hot water heating systems which heat the water by gas, coal or electrical energy. However, these systems suffer the disadvantages that they were designed for use with water of a higher temperature than ordinarily encountered in solar heating and they are relatively slow to respond to sudden heat losses.
Unfortunately, one of the problems ordinarily encountered in the design of specialized equipment for use with solar heating is the high cost of such specially made parts and equipment relative to the cost of off the shelf component parts and equipment.